What A Feeling
by AconitumLuparia
Summary: "Do you ever feel like you've lost something but you cannot exactly pinpoint what it is?" he asks, he sounds desperate. He thinks he is. "What is worse, Malfoy," she starts, her voice is strange, "knowing exactly what you lost, or just knowing you lost something?" - memory loss one shot


Hello everyone! I am Valentina and this is the first Dramione I am publishing in English. I hope you will like it and if you want leave a review!

Rating is M for some coarse language and the thematic (memory loss) of the whole fiction that might be slightly triggering for some readers!

Thank you for reading,

love you.

WHAT A FEELING

The first time he dreams about it he jolts awake, his skin glistening with sweat.

He dreams of blood and a body. He doesn't recognise the person. Of only one thing he's sure, they can't be anything but dead.

* * *

Some nights he dreams about a room so dark he keeps moving in fear he'd lose himself if he stopped.

Sometimes there's light – so much light – he has to close his eyes while red and green spots dance in his vision.

There's a voice in these dreams. It's soft and sweet, it keeps calling his name.

He compares it to the feeling of coming home to a blazing fireplace on a freezing day.

* * *

His mother doesn't mention it, but he knows. He knows he screams himself hoarse in his sleep. He knows because in the morning it feels like he's swallowed glass all night long.

* * *

He sees a couple walking on the beach one day. The girl's wearing a blue sundress he swears he knows every detail of. He doesn't remember seeing anyone wearing that sundress before.

* * *

He gets on reading Muggle literature. He reads about how the protagonist lost all his memories after a brutal car accident. He reads about the struggle of his lover and how their deep and pure love triggers his memories back.

He puts the book away with a growl. Stupid Muggles, he thinks, they're so naive. Such a love doesn't exist.

* * *

Sometimes when he can't sleep he hears his mother wail from her bedroom. He wonders if they both have lost something worth screaming for.

* * *

He makes himself a cup of tea the Muggle way once, without even thinking it. He doesn't know how he learned to do that.

* * *

He loves looking at the stars, they remind him of freckles on a pretty face. He can't put a name on it.

* * *

He sees her on a windy autumn day. She's inside a bookstore, trying to find something to take back home. She's biting her lip, wild hair all over the place, she's reading the summary of a book. He feels like he's seen that scene a million times over. He's sure he's wrong.

* * *

Sometimes he feels like he's on the verge of going insane. Sometimes he feels like he's been insane for a very long time.

* * *

Some nights he dreams about warmth and a petite body embracing his own. "I love you," he hears himself say. It's his favourite one, even though he doesn't think he's ever loved anyone.

Some nights he dreams about green lights flying in every direction. There's screaming. There's death. It looks like hell broke loose.

* * *

He sees her again at a Christmas ball. She's wearing a long golden dress he can't help but think she looks amazing. He's moving before he can even understand it, ten seconds later he's behind her. He sees one of her friends give her a pointed look and she turns around. She's breathtaking.

"Merry Christmas," he says, somehow he knows it's important for her. He leaves before she has the chance to reply. That night he dreams of red lips and mistletoe.

* * *

People stare at him in the streets, they have this look of awe and praising all over them it makes his skin burn. They look at him like he's some kind of soldier. He doesn't feel like one.

He knows about the war. He remembers fragments of it. Blood, death, fear, late nights praying you'll see the sun the morning after. It makes him sick. He doesn't want to remember more. Something at the back of his mind says he should.

* * *

Spring makes people do stupid things, he thinks. He's standing on her doorstep, a bouquet of fresh flowers in his hands. Spur-of-the-moment things don't go well. They never do. He conjures a vase and leaves it on the floor.

He wonders if there ever was a time he did something brave. He doesn't think he ever could.

His feet always bring him in that same direction on their own accord. He goes out on a morning walk and before he even knows it he's staring up at her balcony. The flowers are still there, perfectly cared for.

* * *

"Do you ever feel like you've lost something but you cannot exactly pinpoint what it is?" he asks, he sounds desperate. He thinks he is. At first, she startles a bit. He doesn't know if it's because he's crept up on her all of a sudden, or if it's the question.

Then she's quiet, so quiet he has to turn his head and look at her to assure she's still there.

"What is worse, Malfoy," she starts, her voice is strange, it sounds like she forced herself to say his surname, he finds it extremely weird, "knowing exactly what you lost, or just knowing you lost something?"

He doesn't have the answer. She doesn't want any. She leaves.

He thinks about their conversation for a long time. Weeks after he still cannot find the answer.

* * *

Somehow, when she's right next to him, he feels a little bit less alone.

He's walking down a park one day. He sees a couple with a baby girl playing around. He wonders if he'll ever have anything like that. He doesn't know if he deserves it.

* * *

Sometimes he wishes he was brave enough to give up. He doesn't think anybody would miss him.

* * *

He's running through a forest. Fast. Branches scratch his face and arms. He's running from something. He doesn't know what and he doesn't dare to turn around to check. His heart is beating so fast it feels like it's going to explode. He missteps and falls. There's a loud scream and then darkness engulfs him.

* * *

He remembers he never felt as confused as the day he woke up at St. Mungo's. There was a mediwitch fussing all over him. "You had a concussion," she said. There were other people in the room with him. He couldn't recognize any of them beside his mother. His head hurt like hell.

* * *

Some nights he dreams about burning red eyes. There's a laugh in the air, mocking him. It chills his bones. It makes him shiver. When he wakes up he's afraid to open his eyes.

There is a fading mark on his left forearm. He knows what it is. He's read the papers. He knows people like him were all arrested, or they didn't survive the war at all. He wonders why he did. He asks his mother why he's still free, she gives him a sad smile. "You were never one of them, love," she says. "Never."

After that, he can breathe a little better.

* * *

He wonders if the only reason people are so dependent on clocks is that they give them the feeling they can control something so independent as time. He finds it vain, desperate. Whether or not you keep track of it, it keeps going on and on. And if you lose some of it, it's lost forever.

He knows he's young but he cannot help thinking that he's wasting his time. Waiting for something. Something he doesn't know the first thing about. Something that's never going to happen.

He feels like he's wasting away and he doesn't know how to save himself.

* * *

He's buying a block of weirdly flavoured chocolate when he hears her, "you won't like it," she says. A funny feeling settles in his stomach, he turns around to face her. She looks lost in some memory, he wonders if it's nice. "And how would you know that?" he asks, genuinely curious. It's a pretty innocent question that seems to bring her back down to earth. Her eyes widen and it's crystal clear to him that she doesn't know how to answer that.

"I just... think you're a traditionalist," she settles for. He opens the package and takes a bite, all the while looking at her. She's right, he grimaces, he doesn't like it. She smiles. He thinks he would eat all the horrible tasting chocolate in the world if it meant he could keep seeing her smile like that.

* * *

He asks her out on a sunny spring day. She is grocery shopping all alone and by pure coincidence, he happens to walk by. "Come on a date with me," he says, approaching her. She turns around slowly, no doubt she already recognised him by the sound of his voice.

"Usually, Malfoy," she looks up at him, she's smiling, "people ask other people out on dates. They don't command them."

He doesn't falter, somehow he knows he's already won, "I assure you," he says solemnly, merriment dancing in his eyes, "there'll be nothing usual about this date." She laughs, "you think so?" She says and then conjures a little note. She scribbles on it something with her wand, takes his hand and leaves it in his hold. "See you then," she leaves. He's so shocked that she's already disapparated away when he snaps out of it. When he looks at the note he only finds two words. 'Next Saturday', it reads, he hasn't felt this happy in a very long time.

* * *

Said Saturday rolls around fairly quickly. He's walking the steps in front of her apartment wondering if he can make it when, from the corner of his eyes, he sees the front door open. She's a vision in her short red dress he has to pinch himself back to reality.

"Were you going to come and get me anytime soon or?" she asks, she's smiling in a way that makes his insides warm up with undefined feelings. "Sooner or later," he doesn't have a better answer, he hopes she'll understand he's all nerves. He doesn't think he's ever felt that way before. She links her arm with his and looks up at him, her brown eyes full of unconcealed trust and a little bit of care. He prays he's not wrong in his guesses. "So where are we going?", she inquires, ultimately giving him the reins, he smiles at that. He disapparates them in a quiet Muggle city, he's loved its quietness since he was a child. He used to love going in the little café downtown to get lost in a book. He's quite certain she'll love it. From there everything goes incredibly smoothly as if they've done it hundred times. The conversation flows and every time she laughs at one of his quirks the tightness in his chest lets go and has him breathe a little better. They talk about small things, their favourite books, their jobs and the place they'd like to visit one day.

Afternoon turns to evening before they both notice it and with a quick-thinking he asks her if she would like to also have dinner with him. She gives him a smile that reveals she was waiting for that question since they finished their coffees. At the end of their date, he takes her back home. He gives her a small peck on the cheek and after bidding farewell he turns to leave. She stops him by grabbing his hand. "I'd really like to do this again some time, Draco," she says, a soft expression on her features. He smiles at her, genuinely surprised and content. "We will".

* * *

He doesn't know where his feelings for her came from. All he can understand is that despite the loud memories of his days at school – always tormenting her for things she could not be blamed for, like her hair or her blood status – these feelings are strong. He's never felt like this before and he certainly doesn't want to let them go.

What concerns him most is that she seems to have recognised and accepted the situation without much of a fight. He thinks it unlikely that she has harboured a crush, if not something else, towards him after they left school. It doesn't add up. He knows she's been on the run most part of the war, so she couldn't have possibly had the time to even think about him. In spite of all of his considerations she still seems three steps ahead of him and if pressured he would admit that while it calms him it also scares the hell out of him.

* * *

"There's something about you," he says one day. They're lying on a soft blanket, in the middle of a park near her apartment, they've taken on having relaxing pick-nicks in the wild. He blurts it out without having the chance to think how stupid he sounds. He's tempted to just leave. "I don't understand it, Hermione." He likes saying her name more than any man ever should. It falls so naturally from his lips it feels like it's always belonged there.

"Maybe you will," she says, her voice holds a promise he doesn't think she can make, "with time. Be patient."

He frowns, "I've never been a very patient man." He can be sure about that. He always got what he wanted, as soon as he asked for it.

"You can be when you want to," she sounds so certain, it feels like she knows him better than he knows himself.

* * *

On a particularly hot summer night, he dreams about her. It's not a first but this time it's extremely detailed and it almost feels like he's reviving one of their moments together. When he wakes up, confused as he's never been before, he rationalises it couldn't be a projection of a memory. They have never made love before.

* * *

He's running again, cold sweat dripping down his back and the hair on the nape of his neck stand on end. He's being chased again. His lungs are burning and he struggles to take the next breath. A sharp pain in his right side alerts him that he's probably wounded. He turns around and it's still there. The infernal snake is still following him, them. He takes into account that there's someone next to him, running with him. He cannot recognize them. Cannot bring his dream self to look at his companion's face. He knows what's coming: the branch. Predictably, it's always there, he always missteps and tumbles on the ground hard. He cannot prevent it. His head takes the worst of it, it feels like a lightning has passed through his skull. He fights to stay awake and the last thing he hears before losing his battle is her panicked voice that calls his name. It was her. Even in the last fragments of his consciousness, he hopes she'll be safe.

He jerks awake, breathing heavy like he was in his dream. There is a voice at the back of his mind that prompts him not to believe it to be a simple dream.

* * *

He remembers trying to make a Muggle jigsaw puzzle once. He finds it fascinating how such small pieces connected together can create such a beautiful and powerful image when complete.

He considers life situations to be the same way. Once you connect all the dots you can get a bigger picture you can easily analyse and judge.

* * *

"It looks like you are fighting a battle," she says one day, she's looking at him with barely concealed concern. He wonders if perhaps she can also see he is losing said battle.

"I don't know what to do anymore," he says, somehow he knows she'll understand what he means. "When I am alone it feels like I don't know my own self."

She takes his hand in hers and kisses his knuckles, "I think you are trying way too hard. You are frustrating yourself," she says, ever bit clinical as if she's his healer. He thinks she somehow is. "Let yourself go," she continues, "it'll all come eventually."

He kisses her after that. It starts with a simple peck but soon they deepen it into a kiss full of passion. He is sure they both waited for that moment for a very long time. It's the first of many other kisses and he loves every bit of it.

* * *

It happens on a windy autumn night. They had stayed at her house because they both felt just too lazy to go outside in an unstable weather. They fell asleep together, after consuming a little too much Italian wine. He dreams of the day the witch in his arms was captured and taken to Malfoy Manor along with Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley. He has never dreamed of that horrible day. In a heartbeat he is able to identify his emotions as despair and an overwhelming sense of dread. He dreams about her torture and feels himself wanting to make it stop. Wanting to save his lover. He sees her on the cold floor, trying not to break under the cruelness of the Cruciatus Curse. He notices she's looking at him and as soon as his eyes reach her face she mouths "I love you".

He bolts awake with a scream and he doesn't know he's started crying until she envelops him in her arms and holds him tight against her chest. She murmurs small words of encouragement and sometime later he's able to calm himself down.

"We've been loving each other for longer than I remember," he says, his voice breaks at the end. He doesn't need to ask, he knows. He looks at her and she's crying too, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. She nods, he kisses her.

* * *

They don't talk about it the next day. She feels he isn't ready to take it all in at once. He needs time, to digest every little part one by one. She wonders if perhaps he's better off not knowing a thing. Something tells her he would want to know anyway, no matter how hard or complicated the truth may be. He's always been more courageous than people gave him credit for.

* * *

"I think it's time now," he says one day, several weeks after the infamous dream. He sees her take a deep breath and he understands this isn't hard just for him.

They sit down next to each other on her couch and he takes her hand in his.

"What do you want to know exactly?" she is so scared, scared he's going to run from her. "About the accident," he says, "and what we had before, how it all started?"

"Okay," she rights herself on the couch and looks away, reminiscing, "During our sixth year I noticed you were falling apart, even if anyone else noticed. I saw, don't ask me why I cared about it that much. It made no sense to me, sometimes it still doesn't. I sought you out, tried to understand what you were up to. Of course, Harry noticed too, but that was – entirely – related to his suspects. He was right, but I thought he wasn't seeing the whole picture. I tried to confront you a couple of times." she looks at him with a small smile on her face. He has the urge to interrupt her, "I remember some of it, I remember wanting you to stay far away from me and also finding it ridiculous that you seemed to care."

She laughs a little, "I felt the same, but as much as I wanted to, I couldn't stay away. I followed you one night, perfectly disillusioned, and discovered what you were up to in the Room of Requirements. We had our first fight ever that night, it was harsh and we said things I don't wish to repeat out loud," she grimaces a bit, biting her lip, "in the end I offered you my help, some way out of it. If you wanted it. I know you did, but I also knew there was no way you'd leave your family to take the burn of your failings. We were both aware that Voldemort would have never let it go. You accepted my help, with conditions of course," she levels him with a look, revealing that she was expecting that all along, "I was to help you with the Vanishing Cabinet, preventing you to have a nervous breakdown, and in turn we would – anonymously – warn the members of the DA to be ready for the imminent fight." she is quiet for a few minutes, no doubt reviving those days. "Our relationship grew with that, bit by bit we discovered we could be so much more for each other," she says and he holds her hand a little tighter.

"I thought it would all go for the better, then that night came and everything that could possibly go wrong, it did. I didn't know you also had a task reserved for Dumbledore, you didn't tell me. Perhaps you were foolish enough to think that it would have spared me a broken heart." she sheds a tear, silently. "I didn't see you again that night. Or any other night after that. We didn't even get to say goodbye. We met again when we were dragged to the Manor by the snatchers." she stops there, gets up and goes to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water, he waits patiently. Once she's seated back he says, "the dream I had that night, it was about the day at the Manor. It is potentially the worst memory that's ever come to me that way." She looks at him sympathetically, "No need to get into details then," she tries to light it up, he kisses her cheeks, he knows she still hides the scar from everyone's eyes. "Well, that day you basically saved up, firstly when you essentially refused to recognise Harry as himself, and then when you let us escape with Dobby and your wands. I remember thinking I would never see you again, another unspoken goodbye but then when we met again in the Room Of Hidden Things you helped us and fought with us when the Death Eaters came," she said, fondly looking into his eyes, "you explained that you had so much more to fight for on this side than the other. Your father was barely a shell of himself by that point and your mother took him away while you were at Hogwarts. She thought you safe." he clenched his hand and ground his teeth together, "I do remember that she wrote me a letter, she explained she had to take care of my father's sanity and that she thought it best to do it whilst I was at school. I remember feeling abandoned, and lonely. Extremely lonely. Not even two weeks after my father died. I was obviously sad, but also relieved. It felt like he was finally free," he also remembers being constantly unsure of what step to take next, as if the sudden disappearance of his family had taken away all his abilities to make sensible decisions. He takes his attention back to Hermione and she smiles at him, courageously, she continues, "we had to destroy the remaining Horcruxes, when Harry went into the forbidden forest we tried to kill Nagini but," she stops abruptly overwhelmed by the memories, he pulls her into an embrace and swallows hard. This is the difficult part, he thinks. This is it. What she starts telling next sounds exactly like his most anxious dream, "Nagini followed us, no doubt the monster understood what we were trying to do. We were running when – I don't even know how it happened but – you fell and lost consciousness. We were lucky and for some reason, Nagini was called away at that moment. I was in such a panic and you wouldn't wake up so I took you inside Hogwarts, then Voldemort came forward, declaring Harry dead and, I thought I was going to lose it." she starts trembling a little bit, he gives kisses on top of her head. He's shocked into silence. "After Neville killed Nagini and finally Harry ended Voldemort's life too, I got a healer to look at you and they declared you had a head concussion. All they could do was heal your other wounds and leave you to fight it all by yourself." her voice is tight and calm, she had so much time to digest it, "we couldn't know if you would wake up, and if you did we didn't know in what state your mind your be when you did." she looks up at him and kisses him in the mouth. "I thought it a win when you finally did wake up, but then you looked right through me," she's crying by now, silent tears flowing down her cheeks, "I was there in the room and it was like you couldn't even see me. I didn't know what to do. I left when the healers did." she starts sobbing loudly at that, and he cannot bring himself to do anything but hold her close, his own tears falling freely.

"I forgot you. How could I?" he asks, frantically. "How could I forget the best thing that's ever happened to me?" his throat closes up and he doesn't understand how she could even look at him with such love when all he did was hurt her.

As always, she finds a way to surprise him. "You didn't though. You didn't forget me. That's what brought you back to me, isn't it?" She says through her sobs, she smiles a little bit and he can see in her eyes how much she believes it. A disgrace took him away from her but fate brought him back. "I love you so much," he says, he knows it's not the first time he says it but it feels like it's the best.

"I still don't understand though," he says after a while, the need of clarification still strong, "how come I still have some memories of our sixth year and the battle all without you?" it scares him, how selective his memory loss was.

"The healers didn't have a reason," she replies, "brain damages are very difficult to understand. They are unpredictable and they can have unexplainable effects." Her answer is analytic, no doubt she studied every little detail of the subject. "Your memory loss affected only a certain aspect of your life. The one you shared with me, to be more precise. We cannot know why, only that it happened." He knows she has pardoned him a very long time ago but he still wondered if he could ever forgive himself.

"I am so sorry," he says, somehow it feels like it isn't enough, "I wish I could take it all back, never make it happen. I wish you never had to go through all of that." she kisses him then, keeps kissing him until they are both breathless. "It's not your fault, Draco," she says, seriously, "please don't ever think that I will ever hold it against you. It wasn't easy but it's through, it's gone now. We are good now. Let's live in the present." He agrees and swears – by himself – that he'll live to make it up to her.

* * *

He has the predicted breakdown two days after she told him the whole story. He is pacing inside her apartment, which had become a shared flat some time ago, muttering intelligible words. "What's wrong, Draco?" She asks, concern in her voice. "It's so unfair!" he screams, both angry and sad beyond repair. "How could that happen with a stupid head wound? We were in the middle of a magical war and all it took to lose my memory was a fucking pathetic fall?" he directs his anger at himself, at the situation, at all the odds that stood against him. "It happens, Draco," she says, calmly, showing a control he currently doesn't possess, "it serves as a reminder, doesn't it?" he looks at her for the first time since his temper tantrum and he must have shown confusion with his features, "it reminds us that above all, above being wizards and witches, we are human beings. We are human beings and a simple fall could change our life forever." He ponders that sentence solemnly, he calms himself down and reaches out for her. "Sometimes I forget you truly are the brightest. Thank you." She smiles.

* * *

They make love for the first time ever that same night. It's perfect and so special he wishes he could spend the rest of his life in a wonderful embrace between the sheets with his lover.

Her soft skin under his hands and the little sighs she exhales are enough to bring him to the verge of madness. It's slow, sensual, and at the same time frantic.

They hold each other long after they're both finished, caressing their skin and murmuring little things in the dark.

In that moment they both understand they can make it. They were always meant to be and nothing, not even a war or an illness could set them apart. He might never get his memories back, they somewhat came to terms with it. There's no use into dwelling into the past and forgetting to live. They have a whole life ahead of them. They will live it together. And together they will forge new memories.


End file.
